If a newly hatched orchid mantis isn’t both quick and cunning, it’s likely to end up an easy lunch for a larger predator. And since orchid mantises are unfussy carnivores that aren’t above cannibalism, even members of their own species pose an imminent threat. In this excerpt from BBC’s Life Story series, a newborn mantis must employ some spectacular inborn self-defence skills against a hungry jumping spider if it wants to survive its first day.
Are the kung fu skills of a newborn orchid mantis a match for a jumping spider?
Narrator: David Attenborough
22 March 2016
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